AND THE BAND PLAYED ON

Failure to stop playing was a contributory factor, says safety expert at inquest...

LIMP BIZKIT have been further criticised in Australia during the inquest into a fan’s death at one of their shows, with a safety expert levelling blame for a crowd collapse at the band’s failure to stop playing.

Yesterday, (November 26), on the first day of the second week of the inquest into the death of Jessica Michalik at Sydney’s Big Day Out festival on January 26, Michael Upton said that Limp Bizkit had been repeatedly asked by the security team to stop playing.

“In my opinion, the failure by Limp Bizkit to stop their performance was a contributing factor to the time taken to remove persons from the audience,” he said. “If you were a victim of a vertical load… you really have got very little chance, particularly in an environment where it’s very dark and very noisy,” he said. “If you don’t get help, you’re talking seconds.”

While Upton added that extreme crowd behaviour in response to the band, increased crowd density at the front of the stage and the hot weather were also contributing factors to the crowd collapse, he said that frontman Fred Durst had provoked security “to the limit”, the Sydney Daily Telegraph reports.

The words are sure to rile Limp Bizkit, who have already spoken about their disgust at the press coverage of their involvement in the tragedy. They have also claimed that demands they made for increased crowd safety barriers at the show were not met. Yesterday, Upton said that additional barricades would not have prevented the tragedy.

The band plan to call another crowd safety expert to contradict this evidence. The inquest continues.